Guys, I developed a script to help me read the output of pacman -Ss in 2 nicely formatted columns. The output of 'pacman -Ss srchterm' drives me nuts trying to read down the package names and descriptions with all the tab indented and wrapped text -- so I fixed it. Download the script here: http://www.3111skyline.com/dl/Archlinux/scripts/srch2list.sh The script takes this: extra/ttf-khmer 5.0-2 TTFont collection for Khmer (Cambodia) extra/ttf-linux-libertine 4.4.1-3 Serif (Libertine) and Sans Serif (Biolinum) OpenType fonts with large Unicode coverage extra/ttf-mph-2b-damase 001.000.4.dfsg.2-2 Super-Unicode TTFont covering full Plane 1, and the following scripts: Armenian, Buginese, Cherokee, Cypriot Syllabary, Cyrillic, Deseret, Georgian, Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri but no Mkhedruli, Glagolitic, Gothic, Greek, Hanunoo, Hebrew, Latin, Limbu, Linear B, Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Osmanya, Shavian, Syloti Nagri, Tai Le, Thaana, Tifinagh, Ugaritic, Vietnamese extra/ttf-ms-fonts 2.0-3 Core TTF Fonts from Microsoft and turn it into this: ttf-khmer TTFont collection for Khmer (Cambodia) ttf-linux-libertine Serif (Libertine) and Sans Serif (Biolinum) OpenType fonts with large Unicode coverage ttf-mph-2b-damase Super-Unicode TTFont covering full Plane 1, and the following scripts: Armenian, Buginese, Cherokee, Cypriot Syllabary, Cyrillic, Deseret, Georgian, Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri but no Mkhedruli, Glagolitic, Gothic, Greek, Hanunoo, Hebrew, Latin, Limbu, Linear B, Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Osmanya, Shavian, Syloti Nagri, Tai Le, Thaana, Tifinagh, Ugaritic, Vietnamese ttf-ms-fonts Core TTF Fonts from Microsoft or with the '-d' option for semi-doublespace: ttf-khmer TTFont collection for Khmer (Cambodia) ttf-linux-libertine Serif (Libertine) and Sans Serif (Biolinum) OpenType fonts with large Unicode coverage ttf-mph-2b-damase Super-Unicode TTFont covering full Plane 1, and the following scripts: Armenian, Buginese, Cherokee, Cypriot Syllabary, Cyrillic, Deseret, Georgian, Asomtavruli, Nuskhuri but no Mkhedruli, Glagolitic, Gothic, Greek, Hanunoo, Hebrew, Latin, Limbu, Linear B, Old Italic, Old Persian cuneiform, Osmanya, Shavian, Syloti Nagri, Tai Le, Thaana, Tifinagh, Ugaritic, Vietnamese ttf-ms-fonts Core TTF Fonts from Microsoft The script needs 1 input. That is a filename 'srchfile' that contains the output from 'pacman -Ss srchterm > srchfile' There are 2 options, '-h or --help' gives a brief description and '-d' which causes the output to be essentially double-spaced. (each package description remains single spaced if it requires multiple lines, but a blank line is included between package descriptions) On the todo list is having the script take the input from stdin and eliminate the srchfile. NOTE: the '-d' option goes AFTER the filename. (I'll make the cli input position independent in the next version) The script does some pretty cool stuff and has some of my favorite funtions for the bash addicts out there. It reads 'srchfile' and formats the output in two columns 'pkgname' and 'description'. The pkgname column width is adjusted to the longest filename and the description column (in multiple lines, if necessary) spans the remainder of the xterm width leaving a one-char margin on the right. To make reading easier the description is parsed before being output so that descriptions that span multiple lines only break on spaces and not words while staying withing the column width. The column widths are dynamic based on the terminal window size. (via obtaining the terminal width and height from stty output). (for some reason, $COLUMNS and $LINES are not available in my scripts?? environment? exports?) The script was fun to write as it incorporated a good many of the finer points of bash. It is also well commented so if you are learning bash, or want to learn, this script can be a useful tool for some of the cooler things that can be done with arrays and strings using index manipulation and substring parsing/parameter substitution. The ultimate goal was to make the pacman search output readable, and I think this makes reading the search results *much* easier, at least for me. I guess what I should do for the next version is just incorporate the pacman -Ss call into the script itself and simply read the output of the search directly into the input array instead of reading the input file into an array. Simple enough, but I'll have to put that out as the next revision. Give this a whirl and see what you think. Let me know what works and what doesn't and also how I do things better/cleaner than I have currently done them. Who knows, maybe we will look at 'zenity --list' and provide a gui output next time :p Enjoy. -- David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E. Rankin Law Firm, PLLC 510 Ochiltree Street Nacogdoches, Texas 75961 Telephone: (936) 715-9333 Facsimile: (936) 715-9339 www.rankinlawfirm.com